Comments on 8358 | MetaTalk

I've been working on this, pricing new servers, and looking into colocated boxes so I could split the workload between two servers.

I'm going to spend the next couple months of my free time ramping up a ton of stuff on metafilter, including letting people donate five bucks to get a user account. I hope to do a bunch of code fixes and new features in the next month, and eventually I plan to devote a ton of power user features to some sort of pro account thing, that people can pay into for a 2-3 bucks a month.

I'm also going to announce a contest in the next few days, which should be fun (it's not related to the election at all).
posted by mathowie at 11:18 AM on October 20, 2004

I'm sorry, if it's not related to the election I'm not interested. That Kerry, what a flip-flopper! Discuss.

Actually, that's great news. Thanks for everything, Matt.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:30 AM on October 20, 2004

Wow. That is a certain amount of news.

$5 buys you a seat at the table, then?

And -- and -- Mefi Pro?

Interesting. That will change things.
posted by chicobangs at 11:48 AM on October 20, 2004

TotalMetafilter?
posted by euphorb at 11:58 AM on October 20, 2004

As long as you give JRun the push, I don't mind...I'm looking forward to being able to access the site before 5:00pm GMT.
posted by dash_slot- at 12:06 PM on October 20, 2004

Thanks Matt. I just paypal'd you a couple of days ago, so hopefully I can get a new user acct. I appreciate all you do for us.
posted by Juicylicious at 12:31 PM on October 20, 2004

apropos of nothing, what's the deal with Iceland?
posted by amberglow at 12:43 PM on October 20, 2004

apropos of nothing, what's the deal with Iceland?

It's this island in the Atlantic. I hear it gets cold there and the people love hot-tubbin'.
posted by COBRA! at 12:50 PM on October 20, 2004

Is MeFi going to join the tag bandwagon? Something like "see posts you tagged with 'xxxx'" or "see all posts you with 'xxxx'". Tagging could cause more people to post non-news related stuff since those links tend to be timeless compared with the daily CNN front page.
posted by jonah at 12:57 PM on October 20, 2004

" We all know that MeFi is really, really slow, and really unreliable."

I rarely if ever see a performance problem. Yes, it's slower than it used to be, but well within acceptable tolerances -- 3 to 5 seconds per page load at worst. With more features and active users, however, that might tank but it sounds like The Man has a plan to keep us from going completely off the deep end capacity-wise.

The JRun app server, though, is a piece of shit. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. It's been a pain in the ass ever since the ColdFusion upgrade however many years ago.
posted by majick at 12:58 PM on October 20, 2004

apropos of nothing, what's the deal with Iceland?

It's looking like instead of getting to Iceland this summer like I wanted (too much work and no time off), I'll be spending the two weeks after xmas in London and maybe Paris. I've never been to Europe and can't wait for it. The money gifted to me is still in a savings account, and will go towards the trip.
posted by mathowie at 1:04 PM on October 20, 2004

Yes, it's slower than it used to be, but well within acceptable tolerances -- 3 to 5 seconds per page load at worst.

20-30 second average for me, recently. I'm in Britain on DSL and have no problem with other websites.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:20 PM on October 20, 2004

cool. : >
posted by amberglow at 1:23 PM on October 20, 2004

20-30 second average for me, recently. I'm in Britain on DSL and have no problem with other websites.
That's weird, I'm in Britain on ADSL and performance wise, it seems fine to me, 3-5 seconds like majick.
posted by chill at 1:52 PM on October 20, 2004

Actually, take that back, it was pretty slow posting that comment. I rarely post, and open pages that I want to view in tabs in the background, so I guess this has masked the performance issues for me.
posted by chill at 1:56 PM on October 20, 2004

Yes, that is weird. Really weird. But it's true. Slashdot loads for me in 2 seconds, this post just took 30 seconds.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:57 PM on October 20, 2004

[post-preview] Ah, ok, so I'm not going crazy.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:58 PM on October 20, 2004

>And -- and -- Mefi Pro?

>Interesting. That will change things.

Ineedy. What a shame. Seriously. That might just be the death knell for the wonderchicken, crack-like properties of membership here aside.

Also, performance ranges from abysmal to unusable for me too, lately.

$5 buys you a seat at the table, then?

In all seriousness as well, mathowie, I very very strongly recommend the Lowtax Moderation Method™ if you're going to do that again. Make sure that each new member, and every old one as well, knows that you'll fucking ban them in a heartbeat for even looking at you funny, and it'll cost them a fiver to get back in. How much more pleasant it would be around here....
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:05 PM on October 20, 2004

Ineedy. What a shame. Seriously.

Really? I'm surprised anyone is saying this. I'm talking about doing a bunch of new features for the site as a whole, but reserving some really intensive ones (like killfiles and https connections and killing all ads and any custom rss feed you want, and stuff like that) will be optional, at a couple extra bucks if you want it.

On the free side of things, I'm hoping to do an internal bookmark system that will let folks save their favorite threads, describe those threads, and let others see their saved threads as well, and I might even go with an integration with delicious instead of copying the whole thing myself. Ask MeFi will finally get it's full redo as well, and I have two new subsites planned for helping promote your own site and connecting mefi folks looking for work (not copying craigslist whole hog, but letting people post job announcements for other mefites).

For the new user thing, it's an issue of my admin time. Babysitting new folks is really time consuming and having them pay a $5 cover so I can spend my time separating the great new people from the vicious trolls will take my focus off everything else. It also puts the brakes on rapid growth that we've seen in the past, when 500 random folks showed up one day to shit all over.

So I guess I'm asking folks to trust me again on this. I don't think these things will degrade the site, but improve my ability to pay for bandwidth that I'll be using (I'm seriously looking at getting a couple boxes at serverbeach.com, at around $500 a month). Ads cover that currently, but they're totally unpredictable and I'd rather get some reliable baseline income to cover the monthly costs.
posted by mathowie at 2:19 PM on October 20, 2004

*trusts mathowie*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:24 PM on October 20, 2004

Well, once you're done all that, you'll have deserved a couple of weeks vacation in Europe!

During which time the server will go down, and we'll all be left shivering in the dark, cold winter.
posted by Salmonberry at 2:39 PM on October 20, 2004

*loves stavros, no I mean really loves stavros*
posted by mathowie at 2:41 PM on October 20, 2004

Matt, would it be possible to have a page where people from countries such as say Thailand, who want to join MeFi but for whom US $5 is a large sum of money than it is for an average american, to make a post requesting to be let in and some current members could just sponsor their entry?
posted by riffola at 2:50 PM on October 20, 2004

Let's take stock for a moment. We all know that MeFi is really, really slow, and really unreliable. Recently (for me at least), it's sometimes been unusably slow.

I have this same experience.

Some answers to this problem:-

Paginate long threads, don't make the front page so damn long, cache pages instead of always building them from DB calls all the time. Have a link to AskMe on the Metafilter home page so people who just want to go there don't have to load the MetaTalk homepage unnecessarily. There is so much redundancy here.

MeFi could be made much more lean and mean, with only basic changes to design, and little need for load balancing or even a more powerful server.
posted by SpaceCadet at 2:55 PM on October 20, 2004

Pretty_Generic: No need to get paranoid about this, but the time delay (which I get too) is caused by shadowy government agents double checking your posts for hidden terrorist messages. < insert your own quote from big brother here>
posted by seanyboy at 2:59 PM on October 20, 2004

The proposed new features sound fantastic Matt!

MeFi Pro memberships for the holidays! MeFi Pro T-shirts!
posted by jasper411 at 3:35 PM on October 20, 2004

I was a MeFi Pro for a while, but I had to go back to my amateur status so that I could compete internationally.
posted by ColdChef at 3:47 PM on October 20, 2004

i love riff's idea--i'm in for 4 sponsorships.

*puts on Sally Struthers costume, films commercials for Save the Mefites, starts eating all the CARE packages (pancakes and pony parts)*
posted by amberglow at 3:49 PM on October 20, 2004

Coldchef, dare I ask the results of your last urine test?

I'm still digesting this, although of course I'd pay. (Shit, it's cheap at twice the price.)

What's more, like riff, I'd happily pony up a fiver to set up a new user from somewhere else. Not just because I'd like to hear some non-North American-slash-European viewpoints on things, but also, I'm planning on doing some travelling in the next few years, and any billets I can start sucking up to now will save me beaucoup dinero in the future. (So don't you dare call me unselfish, bucko.)

*I have no idea how my hand got on stav's ass, but -- awright. Impressive.*
posted by chicobangs at 3:51 PM on October 20, 2004

No urine test, but they found a chunk of Miguel in my last stool.
posted by ColdChef at 4:05 PM on October 20, 2004

*feels the love*

Matt, would it be possible to have a page where people from countries such as say Thailand, who want to join MeFi but for whom US $5 is a large sum of money than it is for an average american, to make a post requesting to be let in and some current members could just sponsor their entry?

This is a great idea.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:08 PM on October 20, 2004

If we can pay $5 to sponsor someone, can we pay $10 to have someone banned? I'll bet there's more money in that for you...

Maybe I'm not understanding them, but none of the new features proposed sound the least bit interesting to me and seem like distractions from Mefi's core strengths, but that's just me and I'm sure that some will enjoy them (like the "buddy list" thing). And if they help pay to run the site, then bravo. Anyway, I'm glad the site interests you enough to play with again. :)
posted by rushmc at 4:49 PM on October 20, 2004

SpaceCadet, how many days do you have on your front page? if you think it's too long, why don't you shorten it. the option is on your customization page.
posted by quonsar at 6:08 PM on October 20, 2004

didn't we all just donate money for some sort of new box...? using that "dropcash" service... sorry if someone's already mentioned this but i couldn't read the whole thread, i've got a blinding headache. i'll be happy to donate more if it wasn't enough... and paying such a small amount for a pro acct is a great bargain.
posted by t r a c y at 7:57 PM on October 20, 2004

quick update: the wheels are in motion, and I'm getting two hosted servers from servermatrix tomorrow, hopefully we'll be buzzing along on new servers by the weekend. Each box is about twice as fast as the current one, and I'll be separating the database from the web server, so things should be much faster once it's all up.
posted by mathowie at 8:01 PM on October 20, 2004

boy, who knew Pretty was so important? He talks, matt jumps. : >
posted by amberglow at 8:04 PM on October 20, 2004

Since no one else ever suggests it, and since I spend astonishingly little time thinking about ways in which Matt and MetaFilter might enrich one another, I'm forced to conclude that my nagging little notion is utterly fucking shit. And certainly it isn't original. But what the hell.

With all of the headaches, with all of the hardware expenses, with all of the tiresome, maddening, administrative scutwork - with all of that - I still think Matt could make some reasonably happy money by offering a super-premium membership which includes blog space. The possibility for a readership larger than six family members and a drunk at the local library is a strong draw for frustrated bloggers. These ultimate memberships would include intra-MetaFilter linking privileges unavailable to everyone else, along with other exclusive privileges.

Yeah, I know - what a mess. A community within a community. Good points, bad points. And no, I certainly wouldn't be interested.

Anyway, at least the nagging little notion won't be pestering me anymore.
posted by Opus Dark at 8:08 PM on October 20, 2004

includes blog space

I could actually do this, and was thinking of ways to set this up easily. I guess the easiest legal way to do it would be to use the GPL package wordpress, but I could see if the MT folks would be into letting me be an official host.

I've been thinking about upgrading the hardware to a hosted, managed box with more horsepower for months now, this thread was the ass kick I needed to get it going.
posted by mathowie at 8:24 PM on October 20, 2004

like Daily Kos' Diaries?
posted by amberglow at 8:51 PM on October 20, 2004

Naw, like real blogs. Like your own MT blog at amberglow.metafilter.com
posted by mathowie at 8:54 PM on October 20, 2004

It would be cooler if you could have your own mini-MetaFilter, pick your own background color, and invite whoever you want to post. Of course, I suppose with MT you could just provide a template that looks like a MiniMeFi.
posted by kindall at 8:58 PM on October 20, 2004

I really like the Mini-Me concept - a way to store my own Mefi comments and add my own meta-reaction to ongoing threads.
posted by PrinceValium at 9:26 PM on October 20, 2004

Will this "paid metafilter" stuff make my (free) account obsolete? Will I be missing things if I don't spend money?

Will metafilter look different to me than it does to other users, or the general public?

Because if so, this idea really, really scares me.
posted by interrobang at 9:43 PM on October 20, 2004

(though I like the idea of metafilter being faster, more efficient, and quasi-profitable. I'm just scared that it'll be like the Total Fark thing, where one user might see or have access to things that others don't, or like how you have to pay for the somethingawful forums.)
posted by interrobang at 9:45 PM on October 20, 2004

semi-annual pony fantasy fest, brought to you by mathowie
posted by scarabic at 9:59 PM on October 20, 2004

Well, I could always just post this whenver a request comes up, but I felt like indulging in some plans I've been thinking about.
posted by mathowie at 10:29 PM on October 20, 2004

one question about paid accounts: i know it's pretty rare for members to get kicked, but ... what if? will having paid make it harder (psychologically or legally) to get kicked off? guess you could always refund the five bucks if you were worried about the legal issue ... but still.
posted by louigi at 10:37 PM on October 20, 2004

Matt: although I'm right behind you, I must say I don't like at all the idea that some users will have better services than others. I realize this is the tendency everywhere but somehow I think that the creation of levels (even if it's only a three-tier "paid 5 bucks to join/pays 2 bucks a month to enjoy more options/paid nothing") may affect the spirit of MetaFilter in a bad way.

Far better, from this point of view (which I realize may be questionable), to just leave things as they are. They're good as they are.

Sorry for the raining-on-the-parade effect. :(
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:38 PM on October 20, 2004

I've seen paid slashdot features and total fark and flickr pro, and the paid vs. not paid experiences just aren't that different. Especially with flickr, you get the same exact experience, just a bit higher limits on stuff.

That's my goal, to have something compelling enough to pay for, but isn't so different of an experience to alienate others.

Or, I could just make a joke of it, making a private MetaTalk that only paid people can see, called The Walled Garden.
posted by mathowie at 10:47 PM on October 20, 2004

The Thunderdome!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:57 PM on October 20, 2004

it takes a lot to excite rushmc, you done good matthowie!
posted by kamylyon at 11:50 PM on October 20, 2004

yay to all the ideas, and faster servers. Pretty_Generic, I often find things sluggish in the daytime.

I like riff's idea to encourage new international users - count me in.

I like the mefi job search idea, it could be opened for freelance work too...as ask mefi demonstrates, lots of people here are smart & talented. If I were looking for freelancers, I'd just as soon start here among friends.

Opus Dark's idea has merit too. These could be full blogs or possibly even just more robust user pages.
I'm all for finding ways that Mathowie could make a fulltime living here, but I echo the note of caution many have raised about fragmenting the core Mefi experience.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:52 PM on October 20, 2004

Wouldn't offering blog space be a big pain in the ass, unless you could contract it out to TypePad or such? I doubt you'd want to be the tech-support guy for whiny MeFites.

How about offering redirects, though? That way, I could have vidiot.metafilter.com (or www.metafilter.com/vidiot), which would redirect to my own blog.

Having @metafilter.com e-mail might be cool, too.
posted by Vidiot at 12:04 AM on October 21, 2004

MT blog at amberglow.metafilter.com
Users WWW and Ask are going to be pissed off if you do it like that.
posted by seanyboy at 12:31 AM on October 21, 2004

How about offering redirects, though?

Yeah but if Matt did it that way, it'd be hard to establish and sustain a sense that "The MetaFilter Universe" is a unique, freestanding, valuable piece of online real estate - and he needs that to see him into his doddering years. Plus, linking priviledges, unique search/archive possibilites - a whole matrix of exclusive interconnections and privileged interactions - would be harder to manage - and harder to charge for.

Shit, I sound like a merchant.
posted by Opus Dark at 12:37 AM on October 21, 2004

yeah, I'm still unsure on how exactly the blog hosting thing would go. It'll be a second or third wave feature after I get all the basics setup here.
posted by mathowie at 12:58 AM on October 21, 2004

Running several "private" versions of MetaFilter in parallel with the main site is an idea I've always thought would be cool.

Let's say premium members could set up private groups that they'd have to admin and moderate. They could invite any other premium member and kick people out if they wanted. If you were in one od these private groups you'd see a link to it's parallel discussion for each thread.

Since each group has it's own admin, it can set up it's own rules and culture. People who like to discuss things from a European perspective could have a group for that. People who like discussions free of politics could set up their own group.

This would also allow MeFi to have a few more rules without stifling people.

At first this would be chaos I'm sure. But in time market forces would cause the groups which weren't useful to dry up. And you could have a rule that if a group had no comments in 72 hours they'd be dropped.

This might also drive more quality. Niche groups, dedicated to quality discussion, would encourage good posting.
posted by y6y6y6 at 5:05 AM on October 21, 2004

y6, that sounds like the kind of thing that would drive me off MeFi really quickly. What I like about this place is the exchange of ideas; if I have to figure out which cliques I need to suck up to in order to get admitted to the good discussions, I might as well go back to high school. Keep it all public, Matt!

As long as we're having a pony-fest, I'd like to see comments on music.MeFi, so that people could give each other advice on their music. Kind of like AskMe, but the question is always "Does this work? What can I do to make this song better?"
posted by fuzz at 6:02 AM on October 21, 2004

this sounds totally kick-ass. Even as a broke-ass college student up to my ears in debt, my wallet will be open for metafilter.
posted by bob sarabia at 6:36 AM on October 21, 2004

fuzz - You have issues, and you should seek counseling.

I'm sorry you were scared by your failure to fit in during your formative years. But expecting the rest of the world to limit itself to your own version of inclusiveness is stifling. We already have cliques here, it's just that they all talk at once and drive out quality discussion.

Rather than shut down potential features that will force you to make an effort to participate, how about asking for a premium feature that would let you view "private" discussions in-line in the main thread? Rather than insist that MetaFilter stay as bare bones as possible, just to save you the bother of dealing with your social problems, please try to think outside the box.

We're just talking here. And I would lobby you that *any* feature Matt implements will cause a few members to run away in indignant anger. And just adding a premium membership will set off all sorts of nut-jobs who think it will lead to a rigid class structure.

And we've done this already with AskMe. People have been suspended for behavior in AskMe that is accepted and normal in MeFi. We already have this for MeFi. If you didn't have a MeFi membership you'd be whining to pals about who you need to suck up to in order to get admitted to the good discussions

It's not high school. It's a private web site. Let it go fuzz. The first step is to love yourself.
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:44 AM on October 21, 2004

SpaceCadet, how many days do you have on your front page? if you think it's too long, why don't you shorten it. the option is on your customization page.

Hmmm, I know but what about non-members? Me customising my own page doesn't really make much difference to the server load in general, which is the problem.
posted by SpaceCadet at 7:30 AM on October 21, 2004

Chill, y6, just because I disagree with some parts of your idea for closed discussions doesn't mean I need therapy.

I've got no problem with people having to pay for extra features, I just think that one of the strengths of MeFi is the openness of the conversations and the mix of people. I'd like to see even more new members. Yeah, the signal-to-noise ratio has been pretty appalling on the blue lately. I'm hoping it'll get better after the US election, but I'm not sure.

Still, I don't agree with you that the solution is to split off subgroups and try to keep out the people you don't want to talk with. AskMeFi proves that we can all have good discussions here if the atmosphere is right and if Matt takes a slightly harder stance on moderation. I don't know how to make it happen like that on the blue, but the private groups idea feels like giving up on one of the things that makes MeFi more than just-another-bunch-of-web-forums for me.

In any case, even though we disagree, you're welcome to join my clique. Initiation instructions will be communicated to you at the appropriate time.
posted by fuzz at 7:47 AM on October 21, 2004

What I like about this place is the exchange of ideas; if I have to figure out which cliques I need to suck up to in order to get admitted to the good discussions, I might as well go back to high school.

Agreed. y6's is a bad, bad idea.
posted by rushmc at 8:55 AM on October 21, 2004

Perhaps - at least for now - we could separate the two matters at hand.

On the one hand, money is needed for new servers, maintenance and general peace of mind.

On the other, there are ideas for new features and services.

It seems needless to tie the two together, trying to provide new services and extra work to raise the necessary money for the first task.

Although it cost him a few years of life, y6y6y6 successfully organized the fund-raising effort to get Matt a birthday gift. Perhaps someone else would volunteer and set up the appropriate web site? An important consideration for those who don't have PayPal or credit cards is having a mailing address where we can send cash (foreign currency too!), postal orders and other traditional methods of payment.

I do think that, since it's the core membership who benefits (and puts a strain on the present system), it's we who should contribute. Since many members aren't able to to do this right now, the best system is the one devised by y6 - whoever wants to chip in, chips in. No naming of names or discrimination.

Matt mentions a very important question: a stable income, rather than one-offs. However, subscriptions are notoriously difficult. It's better to have a regular fund-raiser whenever needed. People like contributing when they know what it's for - a new server; a birthday gift; a bill to pay - but don't really like the idea of just paying in for general maintenance.

My suggestion, therefore, would be to organize fund-raisers as they were needed (with no way of knowing who contributed, so as not to discriminate against those who presently can't help or feel it's somehow wrong) and leave it at that.

On the other hand, "premium" services could be regularly sold with no compunctions. Those who prefer the standard system (which is great) would instinctively know that their benefits are at least partially being paid by those who've ponied up for extra features.

The main point, I think, is that we all seem equal on the page and that there isn't opportunity for those who've contributed or paid for extra services to lord it over all the others. It's very important - I think - for MetaFilter to continue to be absolutely non-discriminating.

Financial contributors will always be a minority and should be welcomed - quietly - but their contribution should be its own reward. There should, for instance, be no way of knowing what users got in because they paid 5 bucks and those who joined out of luck, like the majority of us.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:06 AM on October 21, 2004

as one of the 500-odd last random people to join and poop all over, i say good for metafilter. we need less insulation from the outside and more new blood in the mefi gene pool. and, i have to say, you old-timers have gotten quite good at laying the proverbial smack down on unruly new users. it's not just all matt weeding out the trolls, he's got an army of backups out there with their troll-hunting gear on.

thanks for showing us (relative) mefi newbies the ropes, y'all... but get ready to do it again (woo, i can help this time!) looking forward to seeing the improvements matt has planned.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:20 AM on October 21, 2004

"Agreed. y6's is a bad, bad idea."

No. It's just a favorite target for chickenlittles. When trying to scale a community, segmentation is an obvious, and inevitable, option. AskMe is segmentation. It works. It's not a bad idea. MonkeyFilter is segmentation. It works. It's not a bad idea.

If Matt starts charging $5 for a membership, we'll soon have 50K members. Do you really think the current model will be fun once it goes to 5-10 times the current level of both signal and noise? Good luck with that. The current model just won't scale enough to handle it. We know this from past experience. We know this from Slashdot.

What's the point of clinging to the way MeFi was three years ago when it's obviously not going to be that way going forward? This expansion idea works great for Matt if we can make it scale. If it's just a trickle of money from the usual suspects......... we already have that.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:25 AM on October 21, 2004

Surely anyone who joins now will be a five bucker, since membership is otherwise closed? Kind of hard for us to not know...unless we delete all the unused accounts and hand out the user numbers to the new guys (and as we all know, deleting unused accounts makes MeFi run faster).
posted by Orange Goblin at 9:27 AM on October 21, 2004

OG- unless miguel is saying matt should open membership to all once on the new servers, but allow others to pay the 5-spot for the premium membership. otherwise, yeah - user number would be a dead giveaway (and how would the current long-time members feel if a newbie gets handed abandoned user number 37 or something? user number implies seniority, and all that goes with it...)
posted by caution live frogs at 9:39 AM on October 21, 2004

Orange Goblin: I really liked Matt's "daily dozen" system, whereby 12 (I can't remember the exact number) would be allowed in daily, at a set time (was it midday WST?) and those who weren't lucky could get in by contributing 5 bucks.

I think if membership is opened again (and I'm all in favour - just think what MeFi would be like without the latest, excellent group to get in), there should still be a way in for those who don't pay. Otherwise, your point would more than proved and the new inflow would be known as the five-buckers; johns; moneybags...

Madamjujujive's very well-considered post also suggests following a long-established rule of intelligent social transactions: when you start charging for something, it's nice if you simultaneously start offering things to those who otherwise couldn't pay or wouldn't otherwise join.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:47 AM on October 21, 2004

Dammit!

Sorry, caution live frogs - I didn't read my preview! Thanks!

P.S.

On another important question mentioned by Matt - the time it takes him to babysit new members - couldn't some of us help? If a list of willing babysitters were made, couldn't each new user be assigned the e-mail address of someone who could - if he or she so wished - guide them through the initial shock?

I volunteer of course - God knows I could have done with a decent babysitter when I started. ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:03 AM on October 21, 2004

Something I've been thinking about lately is some kind of MefiMember web service. If you combined a secure way for members to authenticate from other sites with a DNS for metafilter.com subdomains, then timeistight.metafilter.com could be hosted anywhere, dramatically reducing the admin overhead.

Of course, people who wanted to be hosted on the metafilter servers and were willing to pay for the privilege could have that too.
posted by timeistight at 10:10 AM on October 21, 2004

I'm fer it.
posted by majcher at 10:35 AM on October 21, 2004

y6y6y6, I don't like the idea of closed "tribes" of content communities. If there was an option to have your own subfilter, it'd have to be about something completely different.
posted by mathowie at 10:38 AM on October 21, 2004

Damn, y6, who pissed in your cornflakes? fuzz made a cogent response to your suggestion, and all of a sudden he's a chicken little that needs therapy and had issues during his formative years?

I was going to chime in with fuzz and agree that segmenting the membership as you suggest doesn't seem to be a good idea, but now I don't know. How about we start up a group just for you, where you can belittle other people needlessly and the rest of us won't have to read it? We can call it "y6 Loves Himself."
posted by Vidiot at 10:39 AM on October 21, 2004

We can call it "y6 Loves Himself."

I think I saw that film in Times Square for a quarter.
posted by jonmc at 11:30 AM on October 21, 2004

well, i'm all for new features, but tell me: what do i do when Jrun won't connect and i have to wipe my ass manually?
posted by quonsar at 11:48 AM on October 21, 2004

Vidiot and Jon: he may be a little grizzly now and then, but he does make a point of forewarning and being entirely conscious of it, allowing others to be just as sincere. I don't think it's narcissism at all - just honesty.

The point is that y6 gets things done - MeFi Distilled; Matt's birthday kitty - which benefit us all. He follows through and puts his money where his mouth is. He's also genuinely involved and has proven to be up to changes and challenges, even when he disagreed with them at first.

Derrida may have died but that doesn't mean we should stop with the deconstruction. ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2004

It's not a bad idea.

Repeat that to yourself all you want...I and quite a few others disagree and you're not persuading anyone with your stubborn repetition.

The point is that y6 gets things done

Doing something is often better than just talking about something, sure, but the fact remains that he has very different ideas about Metafilter than some of us do, and I for one don't like the things he has done with regards to the site and from the looks of it, even less the things he would do.
posted by rushmc at 12:07 PM on October 21, 2004

Migs, I've got nothing against y6. I was just riffing on vidiot's turn of phrase.
posted by jonmc at 12:08 PM on October 21, 2004

One of the unheralded strengths of MetaFilter is how un-forked the discussions are, IMO. One of the things about, say Plastic that makes it less interesting is threading. Every USENET reader knows about thread-drift and the inevitable unrelated conversations that develop. Sub- or private discussions would hurt, rather than help, I think.

On the other hand, AskMe works because it has a visibly different mandate than Metafilter. "I need advice!" vs "Come see!" is easy to differentiate. Interestingly, a consensus seems to be developing that too much crosstalk between the two isn't that desirable.

While personal blogs are sort of an extension of what a lot of members already do with their user pages (and it'd be totally cool if you could set it up so that http://www.metafilter.com/user/14315 would redirect to a "paygo" hosted bonehead.metafilter.com-blog), I think that private or restricted lists would simply have the effect of diminishing the main conversation. Besides, there are already a bunch satellite sites (and IRC) for those that want 'em.
posted by bonehead at 12:09 PM on October 21, 2004

I usually like and respect y6x3, and I'm not going to minimize his past and future contributions to the site. (Even though I don't particularly see the need for MeFi Distilled, but that's neither here nor there.)

However, I must admit he really rubbed me the wrong way with the sneering tone of his responses to fuzz. (And I wasn't accusing him of being a narcissist...I was just going off the last line of his comment.)

But maybe we're just each feeling a little cranky today, in our own unique and lovable ways.
posted by Vidiot at 12:15 PM on October 21, 2004

I'm hoping to do an internal bookmark system

Yay! I get my pony.

But please, please matt no pagination.

y6y6y6, I don't like the idea of closed "tribes" of content communities. If there was an option to have your own subfilter, it'd have to be about something completely different.

I'm not a fan of this either, mostly because I've seen several mailing lists die off when they went to web forums that allowed cliques to form. Yah the few annoying or volumous commenters were kept out but the community completely stagnated.
posted by Mitheral at 12:48 PM on October 21, 2004

it's never a good idea to put a new addition on a broken foundation.
posted by quonsar at 12:59 PM on October 21, 2004

As far as server load goes, likely the best thing that people can do is to read the dailies with a non-invasive rss aggregation reader like bloglines. (On the flip side, using a constantly polling rss reader will increase the server load dramatically.)
posted by Caviar at 1:03 PM on October 21, 2004

I'm a troll and should be treated as such. No one pissed in my Corn Flakes, it's just that I'm better and smarter than most anyone here, so I feel comfortable belittling people while making silly spelling errors. It's not my fault if you people are idiots, and I think you all owe me an apology.

Fuzz was smart enough not to feed my troll. The rest of you are, if I may be so bold, a bit dim. Matt isn't dim, but he's nicer to me than I deserve.

But having said that, nothing I've built or done in regards to MeFi should get me any cred around here. I disagree with the idea that the site should be one single pile-on, but I also admit that most of the web apps I've built over the years have come to nothing. I sincerely believe that others know better when it comes to running this place. I've always thought having MeFi as a distributed set of communities would work better. That is - I embrace the idea that the app and the culture are the key to MeFi's success as much as the members, and the best way to scale things is to fork the app. But that's just me. Others here, and especially Matt, have had a greater record of success than I with this sort of thing. We're just talking here.

"Yah the few annoying or volumous commenters were kept out but the community completely stagnated."

My thinking is that the bad forks would stagnate. I don't see how bad forks could make the main site stagnate.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:23 PM on October 21, 2004

I don't like the "tribes" thing either. We don't need orkut.metafilter. But Matt's plans sound great.
posted by languagehat at 1:25 PM on October 21, 2004

wouldn't there not be a main site anymore if there were forks? what would get put where?
posted by amberglow at 1:47 PM on October 21, 2004

wouldn't there not be a main site anymore if there were forks? what would get put where?

The main site would still be for US politics. Everything else could go in a fork.

We could call it forkoff.metafilter.com.
posted by timeistight at 1:55 PM on October 21, 2004

You would think with all people coming and going here that the rate of comments would fluctuate, but it hasn't. I see no reason why this trend will stop tomorrow even with 50k users.
posted by euphorb at 2:01 PM on October 21, 2004

We could call it forkoff.metafilter.com.

sounds good to me. ; >
(actually that really would suck...i love the science and genetics and philosophical and environmental and religious and all the other posts that i would have never seen otherwise if they weren't posted here.)
posted by amberglow at 2:08 PM on October 21, 2004

I worry that diary hosting might be the sort of feature that would flush Metafilter down the same tube Kuro5hin went when Rusty implemented it.
posted by majick at 2:10 PM on October 21, 2004

"wouldn't there not be a main site anymore if there were forks?"

If we had a political fork(s) we could institute an informal rule that partisan bickering was off limits in the main MeFi threads. Just as we've done with silly in-jokes at AskMe. The political forks could absorb the stuff which makes the current political threads so useless. Just an example.

And the fork would just be a parallel thread. It wouldn't eliminate any FFPs. Premium members who wanted to see everything in-line could do that. I'm assuming that premium users would. be able to have "read" access to the alternate threads. They just might not have write access. I'm not thinking of it as a tribe or fork so much as a way to allow alternate culture or admin style.

If conservatives wanted to discuss the debates without being shouted down or whatever, they'd have no excuse to not do that. And we'd probably all learn more. One of the main complaints about MeFi is that we're a snarky, elitist boys club. As new users flood in it would be nice to give them the option of positive alternatives to becoming disgusted with our snarky, elitist boys club.

Matt has already shot this in the head, so I'm just babbling at this point. 'Nuff said.
posted by y6y6y6 at 2:48 PM on October 21, 2004

Kuro5hin flushed down the tubes? I'm friends with rusty but admit I haven't looked at the site in about a year. Has it gone downhill since?
posted by mathowie at 3:28 PM on October 21, 2004

It's become known as a bit of a trainwreck in recent times. I'd be curious to hear what rusty had to say about growing communities and feature sets and such, since he's a member here and all, and he has the kuro5hin experience to draw on.

*puts up the rustysignal*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:33 PM on October 21, 2004

Y'know, not everything has to be everything. When I mentioned blog space, I was thinking in terms of what kindall subsequently suggested - blogs with the same look and feel as MetaFilter proper. There's nothing really pyrotechnic about shoving 'metafilter' into a blog's address - the real value of a MetaFilter™ blog is in the linking privileges that come with it.

*deep breath*

MetaFilter™ blogs can be linked to from comment threads.

Voila! Pseudo-forking, pseudo-threading, pseudo-extended discussion - all without catastrophic consequence to the current MetaFilter model - all under the MetaFilter umbrella - and MetaFilter™ blogs are tempted to quality by a ready audience and pre-fab topics.

So what's to prevent MeFi bloggers from skin-and-boning a MetaFilter proper thread with brief, uninteresting self-linking blurbs? Self-interest! The overall MetaFilter audience will decline in direct proportion to the selfish banality of its threads. Bad, vewwy vewwy bad.

Or something. I'm just riffing. Besides, being lucid gives me a headache. Here - try some of this - it's sweet and it's made with cactus and mushrooms.
posted by Opus Dark at 5:48 PM on October 21, 2004

I just want to pipe up and opine that somehow this site has righted itself over the last couple of months and is a joy to read again (not that I've done much to help). I think a heroic effort by adamgreenfield, who hit one out of the park day after day for a nice long stretch, did wonders. And it's great to see some positive discussion on how to grow this weird experiment into something bigger and nicer. Yay Matt. Yay everybody.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 5:57 PM on October 21, 2004

Yay.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:36 PM on October 21, 2004

Nice, thankyou.

Glad I joined. No, really.
posted by Bdave at 9:07 PM on October 21, 2004

kuro5hin may have changed with the diaries (I don't go there these days often enough to notice, only for specific stories). But diaries are central to the Scoop implementations of DailyKos and MyDD, and have really been part of making them feel more like a community of people instead of just posters. See what Kos and his Scoopster (who's here at MeFi, somewhere) have done regarding "recommended" diaries, diary bookmarks, and the like, before completely dismissing this idea.

The growth of these sites has surprised me. I suspect they'll lose a lot of the community after the election, of course, but that isn't something we need to worry about. Along the way they've ~~hacked~~ innovated flexible features that have prevented a kind of community meltdown.

What Matt's talking about with the pony is simply catching up with features that have been successful elsewhere.
posted by dhartung at 1:13 AM on October 22, 2004

I think there are some questions that need answered about opening membership before setting the price at $5.

How many new members are ideal?
Is total number more or less important than the rate of addition?
How many new users will it take to eat the performance improvements of the new hardware?
What's the correlation between number of posts per day and number of members?
How many posts per day are too many?
What ratio of posts require deletion or moderation?
How did this ratio change the last few times membership was opened? For how long?
What will each new user cost in equipment, bandwidth, maintenance, administration?
How many hours of work per year does one user represent?
With the current application, is there a point where the economies of scale breakdown?
Since your expecting a one time charge, should you project the costs of administration out over several years?

There are real costs here. I think pricing should take these costs into account.

How many people will pay to join at $5, $10, $20?
How close does that estimate come to the magical number for desired new members?
Does lower pricing for non US/UK/AUS members make sense? How much lower?
Is there an opportunity to get rid of advertisements all together? How much would that take?
Would getting rid of ads reduce the costs of administering the site? Enough to acheive a net reduction in admin costs?

I'm going to guess that one-time $20 per new user is better for both Matt and for the community and would let the site be run more magnanimously than a lower price point. I think that its good sense and good for us all.

I also think that it's easily closer to the market value of a membership than $5 is. But the above questions need answered to know for sure. I also think it would let recurring charges for things like Pro to stay low.
posted by putzface_dickman at 12:08 PM on October 22, 2004

October 20, 2004 10:34 AM Subscribe

October 20, 2004
10:34 AM Subscribe